This invention relates to shopping carts and in particular to anti-loading trays for mounting on shopping carts.
It has been found that, in large supermarkets which use conventional nestable, or telescoping, shopping carts, substantial quantities of goods may be pilfered and not checked at the check-out station because they are carried out of the store on the cart frame at a position below the cart's basket. Often the goods below the basket are obscured from the view of the checker and thus, either intentionally or unintentionally, the goods are not checked through. The failure to check these goods has resulted in substantial losses to the supermarkets.
In order to prevent such losses it has long been suggested that an anti-loading device be positioned on the cart's frame below the basket. A construction has recently been disclosed wherein a plurality of bars are welded to the cart's frame and arranged to provide forwardly and laterally sloping planes that prevent loading of articles on the cart's frame below the basket. Such a device presents problems that: (1) carts already in use cannot be field-converted to use the device; and (2) special jigs and tooling may be necessary at the manufacturing plant in order to manufacture carts with the device.
It is, therefore, an object of this invention to provide an anti-loading tray device which is characterized by its simplicity of construction which permits connection of the unit to existing cart structures without welding thereby providing economy of manufacture and permitting conversion of carts already in use, as desired.
These and other objects of this invention will become apparent from the following description and appended claims.